


4am in a bathtub (salt on his lip)

by YouLookGoodInLeather



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Just whomp fic, May be Feycien if I continue, Past Lucien/Andras, Pre-Feyre's Arrival, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, tamlin sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 14:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11715879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouLookGoodInLeather/pseuds/YouLookGoodInLeather
Summary: With Andras gone, Lucien has a world to save and no soul left to do it.





	4am in a bathtub (salt on his lip)

**Author's Note:**

> No proper happy ending. May evolve into bitter Feycien. Pretty much just emotional Whomp fic. Double check the warning tags if you have any triggers. Unedited so who the hell knows what's down there - certainly not me.

It’s 4am, and he’s sitting in the bathtub. Same thing he’s been doing for what? One hour? Two? He stopped checking the time long before he finished emptying out the bottles. 

Tamlin is unbelievably paranoid that Amarantha will somehow try to assassinate him, so naturally, there’s no poison in the palace - plenty of pills and potions though that, though not technically poison, can certainly act as it when horded in large enough quantities. 

It is an odd feeling when your entire sense of self-esteem amounts solely to some morbid pride that you have found _so much_ medication in merely one building. One building that now houses only two members of nobility. A handful of servants. Approximately zero individuals named Andras. 

How could Tamlin let him go? How could he send Andras away, knowing how keenly Lucien needed him. 

Well, there was the source of the problem. Of course they’d never let Tamlin know how close they were. Only in the midst of true insanity could they ever speak to him of nights spent by candlelight, hot flesh on flesh sheltering against the night’s chill. 

Ghosts kiss Lucien’s throat, but that is all they are; ghosts. One felled by his own father, the other by his closest friend. A dozen other spectral lips from affairs, from shadows, from diplomacy, merely there to drink from him, and bequeath nothing in return. One pair drenched in booze, in grief, in panic, taking him rough and furious against this very bathtub in the dark. He can still feel the blood, although it’s from a fresh injury this time.

Not that those will do anything. Fae healing means even his skilled cuts wont be fatal. But it feels good – feels… right – to see the crimson sluicing of his forearms. Gashes that speak of itches scratched, of the urge to just do _something_ sated. Yet try as he might, he can’t get deep enough. Can’t even do that fucking right.

So he stares at bottles. Empty bottles, lining the tub, strewn across the floor. A chalice they once used in rituals, when high priestesses danced amongst the spring grass rather than cowered away beneath mountains. Inside dwells a pool of all the devil’s liquids he could find, and sprinkled atop like candied fruit, capsules. Strong, pungent herbs.

A bottle of wine resting against his thigh. Two empty broken in the sink.

The green glass lies drenched in blood, scattered across the copper, the tiles. Drinking is never a good idea, not without Andras. Not without his hair to smell and think of sunshine and better days. Not without his touch to remind him he’s _there, it’s real, you’re safe_. Not without his words… the kindest in any court. 

“I miss you,” Lucien mumbles into slicked hands, lukewarm. “I miss you.” He’s not sobbing, he’s not sobbing, he’s not sobbing. Fuck, he’s pathetic. “ _Come back_.” 

He can feel it raw in his chest though; a shattered bridge, a snipped chord. Perhaps they were not mates, but they most definitely were connected. Two people don’t confess things to one another’s collarbones like that, and walk away mere strangers. He did not lie, broken and clawing for an end, in those strong arms just to forget them in an instant.

He knows Andras is dead. He can feel it, somewhere, maybe his stomach, his bones, wherever, it’s hot and messy and it’s spilling ugly from his torn skin. Whatever they shared, the magic that knotted them filthy and secret together, has unraveled and died.

Lucien fingers the goblet. Runs his nail around the rim, lingers in the scrape. If he drank the contents, he would probably die. Or maybe Tamlin would find him delirious and writhing. Maybe he’d bend him over the side of the tub like before. Fuck him once, twice, whatever – enough times for him to lose count and consciousness. In a way, he thinks that sounds rather nice; Anything that is not feeling this hollow, this hopeless. 

The past fifty years have been a haunting, not a living. He’s not even sure he can call it surviving, for with every passing hours he’s felt something chipping away. Some important culture buried within him dying en mass.

Has he always been this morbid? How in The Mother’s name did Andras ever put up with him? 

Rocking onto his knees, he bows before the cup. Trembles back and forth, closer and farther. All the while, he stares at the combination he’s amassed. It looks ridiculous, really. He just grabbed anything and everything he could find. Shoved it together as some kind of murder’s treasure trove. He thought it’d be prettier than this. More dramatic. He could have sworn he’d been promised that this would feel like release, like freedom. 

Instead it feels… void. Pointless. So he’ll die. Just like all the others. The past centuries of struggle and strife and all of that bitter, snarling _effort_ will have been for nothing. He doesn’t feel like he cares, not in that moment, and yet he cannot bring himself to drink. 

Why? 

Why can’t he just end it? It feels like centuries of the same hollow, aching dread will span out before him. The idea nearly drives him to do it. He focuses on it, tries so very hard to make himself do it. 

Picks up the cup.

He’s failed all else. Nothing has _worked_. He has to do at least this. Surely, he is not so useless as to fail this last task. 

He sucks the mixture down.

Only managing to drain a fifth of the cup at best, he hesitates. If he swallows, he will have probably taken in enough to initiate a slow, painful possible death. If he swallows, he’ll have to keep going if he wasn’t this to be relatively painless. He has to swallow this, and then, say, four more? Maybe five? 

He can taste it searing his tongue and gums. Devouring his teeth. _Just do it. Just swallow_. 

He spits it back into the cup. 

“Fuck.” 

Gagging, spittle drips from his tongue as he wretches up what remains in his mouth. Once that distraction has run dry, he flings the damn thing from him, spilling it across the taps and plug.

Why couldn’t he just kill himself? Why is he so weak that he cannot manage even that?

Sobs wreck his body, heaving up dry vomit wetted only by salt tears. He feels vile, feels _exhausted_ , and yet his raging brain won’t dare let him sleep. Not for another two hours at least, not until he can’t even remember his name he’s so sick with self-loathing. His tongue taste likes acid. Eyes burn. Salt sears them and dries upon his cheeks.

Would Andras really call him beautiful now? _Always_ , he had promised. _Always_.

“Well,” Lucien rasped to a void audience of dead boys. “You lied. You didn’t _stick around_ for _always_.”

Collapsing against the copper frame, he weeps and pities himself, his court, his lost lover, everyone who’s ever had the misfortune of making his acquaintance. It must have been so horrible for them. So vile, to meet someone so selfish and two-faced, so prone to hiding and locked silences.

Out there lies a world he has tried to give all of himself to, and yet he finds himself forcing smiles and dishonesty. Found he can only take, because ripping out his heart and flesh hurt more than even this. He could be cunning and clever and witty all they wanted, but open demanded too much. He’d learned young such exposure is only safe behind locked doors and drawn curtains. And even then, he has to keep his eyes closed. 

But even though he yearns for absolution, he sits. He breathes. He clambers out of the tub. 

Washes his face. Dries. Dresses. Throws open the heavy velvet curtains to a barely rising sun. Ties his hair atop his head. 

He has a world to fix, and too many monsters to count left to leash. He has a Tamlin to subdue, appease. There isn’t time for weakness.

By soft pale sunlight, he bandages his wrists. As Tamlin knocks upon his door, he stands admiring the spotless bathroom. Adorns himself with such a seamless smile. “Ready,” he calls, as he buries another night even deeper.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please look after yourself and stay safe x


End file.
